“Lifetime Portfolio” at Barry’s consists of a stunning selection from an ongoing series of hand-tinted photographs on 20 x 24” paper. These idealized landscapes span four decades of Ann’s career mainly during the time she was living on Galveston Island on the coastline of Texas start in 1991.

Of all her work she observes “the light and the changes in weather, the bits and piecesof life going on around me, the enormousness of the ocean and the sky. When I wasthere I felt so small living on the edge of the bay. I now live in an older neighborhoodin Houston, lots of trees and homes close together where I feel really large and I’vebeen looking at things here with a magnifying glass. I miss seeing the horizon line, the coastal light and water, so maybe the future will take me somewhere where I feelnot large, not small but just normal…”

“Texas Coast,” a gelatin silver photograph with translucent oils

After the black–and-white image is printed, Ann paints over its surface with colors that coincide with her personal memory of the place at the moment it was photographed. Then she titles it by its location, date and time of day it was taken; this exact documentary label organizes the photographs whereas the dedicated, technicallytime-consuming hand-coloring technique personalizes each image.

Truthfully Galveston’s beaches are particularly unsightly and fraught with problemssuch as pollution, trash, red algae, and jellyfish; she resists as much as possibleglamorizing its shores. “The images exist somewhere between reality andromanticized memory, as many photographs ultimately do.”

For “8.2.00 A.M. Texas Coast #4” she says “I tried to present the full image as something pure, not manipulated. I just waited and watched, looking for the right light and reflections in the water...the moment came together without my controlling it. It was just an instance when the sunshine and storm were almost happening at the same time.” This exquisite, large-scale (68 x 90 inches) photograph rests in the collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.